Living Building Chronicle

Across the southeastern U.S., wind turbines are spinning on hilltops, and solar panels stretch across roofs and fields. A Vanderbilt university professor says part of the reason is that large companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are demanding low-carbon energy for their facilities.

A common theme emerged in two sessions at Greeprints 2018: Net zero energy is perfectly feasible but — if we’re to meaningfully combat climate change — the built-environment community needs to adopt net zero more quickly.

In the spirit of learning from others’ mistakes, BuildingGreen’s Paula Melton and Peter Yost share seven tales of problems that run the gamut from uneven heating and cooling, to light sensors run amuck, to customized ductwork design gone wild.

Southface’s 2018 Greenprints Conference kicks off tonight with a 20th anniversary dinner at Midtown Atlanta’s Rhodes Hall, followed by two days of speakers and workers on sustainable building and development at the Georgia State University Student Center downtown.

The World Green Building Council’s “Advancing Net Zero” has an ambitious goal: that 100 percent of all buildings operate at net zero by 2050. WGBC calls for better tracking and verification of building performance, and not surprisingly suggests that buildings meet net zero by balancing reduced energy demand with renewable sources.

Zero energy commercial buildings appear to be accelerating their steep ascent in North America.

Sixty-seven of them have now been “verified” in the U.S. and Canada, according to a recent report from the New Buildings Institute. Another 415 are underway or are being evaluated for net-zero performance, according to the report, the 2018 Getting to Zero Status Update.

The International Living Future Institute’s Brad Liljequest gets some interesting answers on ILFI’s Trim Tab site from PAE Engineers’ Brad Mead in an interview about net zero building’s and Project Drawdown.

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